Top 10 Takeaways from GBTA Convention 2025

1. Know, Then Validate, Your Strategic Drivers. Insight into “why do we manage travel” correctly frames the key pillars of your program.  As management confirms these, connected budgets and initiatives gain higher status and greater chances of deployment.

   
   

2. The Future of Work. Asking the right questions (not a better mouse trap but a mouse-free premises), leading with empathy, remaining curious, and creating belonging are now must-haves for feeling valued and purposeful.  The collective intelligence is faster, smarter and more innovative than the sole expert.  Hope, trust, compassion and stability are today’s most valuable currency.

   
   

3. TMCs Next Steps. Retailing, full content, and AI are now table stakes.  Leisure searches have trained travelers to expect these – so any gaps, when compared to corporate searches, are heightened, creating traveler dissatisfaction and channel fragmentation.

   
   

4. AI And Travel Policy: The Perfect Use Case.  Providing just-in-time information, specifically curated to only the exact need, builds traveler trust by communicating simply yet powerfully – teaching and persuading for more compliance.

   
   

5. Stories Need To Compel.  Tailor by audience (role), not age group.  Offer the what (to do), then the why (reason) for brevity and clarity.

   
   

6. Innovation’s Sweet Spot. The Venn diagram where hard work and overlooked opportunities converge is innovation.  We are hardwired to do things the same way as before.  We may start subtly but need to take risks, sooner rather than later, to move forward.

   
   

7. AI Questions Buyers Should Consider. What models are/have been used for training? What data protection and privacy can you ensure? How do we handle incidents (including shadow AI)? And what legal recourse might we have should all not go to plan?

   
   

8. Leadership and Accountability: It is YOU!  Great leaders are aware of their outsized impacts and lean into 360-degree feedback, while owning their responsibilities to ensuring a healthy and vibrant work environment.

   
   

9. Travel Data must be connected.  Booking, expense, card, ERP, off-channel and supplier data must be integrated.  When here, we are able to compare costs per channel, true compliance rates, value of supplier relationships, project trip ROI, forecast and accurately manage budgets.

   
   

10. Travel Is Back, But More Slowly Than Most Thought. 86% pre-covid, predicted to return to pre-covid by 2029.  Current trade wars create uncertainty which leads to travel reductions/slowing as a leading economic indicator.